


'Til We're Talking in Whispers Again

by paintstroke



Category: Southern Vampire Mysteries - Charlaine Harris, True Blood (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fate & Destiny, Hubris, Language Barrier, Magic, Prophecy, Supernatural Elements, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:34:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28776135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintstroke/pseuds/paintstroke
Summary: Sookie had gotten used to the blood dreams that had linked her and Eric. They’d been an annoyance, mostly, something to put up with. She hadn’t expected to miss them when they disappeared. It was almost a relief to see Eric appear in her dream again, like a sign that things were getting back to normal.Except this was anything but a ‘normal’ dream…Set after/before the series, using some book background for Eric, but otherwise following the True Blood timeline (without the ‘1 year / 3 years later’ scenes).
Relationships: Eric Northman/Sookie Stackhouse
Comments: 13
Kudos: 28





	'Til We're Talking in Whispers Again

Eric entered the seer’s hut. She sat waiting for him, the bear-skin cloak making her shoulders huge. 

He settled slowly in front of her. His grief was still sharp, but there were his children to think of. Aude would have wanted them taken care of, and his sisters were already managing their own households. He’d imposed on them long enough, and with the autumn drawing to a close, he—or rather, his father—had been in negotiations. 

He’d left the goats tied outside the hut, but Eric placed the other gifts on the table in front of him. She took the packages with care, inspecting the contents. She placed them at her side, and raised her eyes to him in acknowledgment. 

“What is it that you wish to know?” The seer’s voice was hoarse. 

“Is the marriage to Inga auspicious?” 

The seer cast her runestones on the table between them. Her laugh was slow and horrid. Slowly, she shook her head. “You will not marry Inga.”

Eric hesitated. The marriage deal was as good as done, to hear his father speak. Eric just had to travel to her family’s farm and meet her. His approval was expected, essentially a formality.

“Is there a different women the gods will me to marry?” he asked cautiously. 

She touched one gnarled hand to the pouch at her side, stroking it in a way that made Eric feel almost nauseous. She pulled another rune and stared at it without speaking. “You will marry again,” she crooned, finally placing it with the others. “But oaks will grow and fall before you lay eyes on your next wife.”

Oak trees grew for lifetimes; they were practically part of the landscape, unchanging and stable. The seer spoke nonsense. Eric thinned his lips, irritation gnawing at his patience. What was the seer hoping to accomplish with this? His family’s power usually prevented such foolishness. He shifted back, ready to leave and be done with this visit. He had no use for this.

One of her blue-veined hands shot out and stopped him. Her grip was strong. “The gods have marked you,” she said, as if it were a warning rather than a blessing. 

He didn’t heed it. Her words tugged at his ego. “Oh?” he asked, suddenly more willing to stay. He didn’t break her grip.

The seer looked up at him. She laughed, and it sounded unhinged. There was a fine line between having the ear of the gods and slipping into madness and Eric wondered what side of that line the seer was on. She stood, letting his hand fall. She was tall, he noticed, taller than he expected from her hunched pose. 

Instead of explaining, she turned to one of the pots on the shelf, humming something tuneless and discordant as she spilled out a handful of dark material onto the fire. The resulting smoke smelled sharper, almost bright. Following the seer’s lead, he didn’t flinch. In a few breaths the scent went to his head, and he felt a rush of power, suggestive of the breath of the gods themselves. 

_The gods had marked him._

The seer smiled her unnerving smile. “Let me look at you more closely.”

Her teeth were too sharp. In the flickering lamplight, her features looked _other._ Her eyes shone, a little too blue, a little too deep, bright when they should have gone dark in the shadows that had started to move and crawl around the hut. 

None of that mattered though. Eric wanted to know everything. When he thought she’d looked at him long enough, he demanded, “Tell me.”

“Drink this,” the seer told him instead, handing him a medium-sized horn. He focused his gaze on it as the room swam slightly, wondering when she’d filled it. He knew better than to ask what it was. He looked at her steadily before draining it. It tasted earthy and slightly bitter. She smiled, her teeth dark and sharp-edged. He couldn’t tell if it was a trick of the flame-light. 

She stacked more logs in the fire, and sat across from him again. She no longer moved like a crone bent with age. She studied him with those too-blue eyes. He was growing more lightheaded. Her eyes almost seemed to glow rather than reflect the firelight. Light flickered against the skulls hanging on the wall, the shadows of antlers growing and weaving, stretching across the open space where no shadows should be. He felt like he was sinking further into the earth, the floor shifting underneath him. His hands began to tingle slightly, and he had to force himself to pay attention to her words.

“Blood is in your future.” 

He didn’t need a seer to assure him of that. “And gold?” he asked, cheeky with the haze of the drink settling on him. He felt dissociated from the room, like his consciousness was floating above his body. 

“And gold,” she agreed, with a laugh that would later haunt him, “and gold.”

Eric smiled, and reality shivered around him. His vision blurred, not quite doubling, just wavering. He was glad for the connection he felt to the earth, to the fire. The air seemed to bend and waver. The seer blew another handful of chopped herbs onto the flames, which spat and ticked as they added acrid notes to the smoke. 

He pushed, needing to know more. “And women?”

There was the click of another stone on the table, though it was a blur. “You will know many women.”

Satisfaction curled around Eric. Old habits were hard to give up. Still… he tried to refocus on his purpose in visiting the seer. To find someone he could perhaps grow to love, someone fierce who he could trust to run his homestead while he was gone, a match blessed by the gods… “But not a wife?” 

The seer coughed, wet and hacking. She shook her head slowly. “Frigg has turned her back on you.” 

The words stung. His hands tightened into fists, even if his anger and loss were impotent in the face of the seer. The goddess of marriage had never watched closely over him; Aude’s death and the death of three of his children had proved that. 

The touch of the seer’s hand at his chest brought him back to the hut, even as his head swam. “Your heart is beloved by Freya.”

He knew he had been indiscreet in some of his affairs. He’d never had to hide them, not with his position. Eric looked down at the seer’s hand, watched the shadows pulse and twist underneath it, crawling out from under her wrinkled palm and across the crimson of his tunic. He watched, fascinated, and tried to look suitably contrite. 

He’d just wanted a simple blessing on his marriage to Inga. Eric tried to remain humble. 

Stringing words together had become much more difficult. “How do I call Frigg’s attention back? I wish to settle my wife before winter.” 

His mind was heavy, considering of the chill of winter in his bed, of leaving his children a burden on his sisters come the spring thaw when he’d leave, three more hungry mouths to feed and growing bodies to clothe, not yet old enough to be much help. 

He’d missed the end of summer, but a marriage in autumn could be just as fortuitous. The arrangement with Inga would bring a good inheritance. But he was fairly wealthy already. With the farm, he could support another child or two, even if his raids brought little back. 

But that was a moot point, if the seer didn’t give her blessing. He could potentially turn the gods’ minds. His father’s, however…

“It will take powerful magic to bring your wife to you now,” the seer warned. “Now is not her time. Rethink your request.”

Eric narrowed his eyed. He’d brought grain and smoked fish up the mountain, stacked firewood outside her cabin. But those weren’t the types of offerings granted for powerful changes to fate. No. Powerful offerings always involved death. 

“What would the gods wish of me?” he asked, wary of the answer. 

Her smile cracked a little wider. 

“First, your memories.”

“Let the gods have them.” Eric thought of the haze he often left the seer’s hut in. He’d woken some mornings with no memory of how he’d gotten back home after he asked on his children’s fortunes. This would be no different. 

“And your blood.” 

Eric didn’t hesitate, offering his wrist. Time slid away from him, jerking forward unevenly. As if from nowhere, a pale bone knife nicked along his arm, spilling his lifeblood into a copper-colored bowl set on the table below. 

He felt as if time spun away from him, like he’d missed something vital. He raised wary eyes back to the seer, certain she was already taking memories. He wondered what else he’d agreed to. He was pressing soft fabric against his wound.

The seer sat back, wreathed in smoke and shadow. She pulled the fur tighter across her shoulders, as if the heat of the fire wasn’t making the small dwelling feverishly hot already.

“The gods will call her.”

Eric stood, inclining his head in thanks. His head swam. He wasn’t sure how much was literal, and how much of this was a show. 

When the seer spoke again, her voice was low. He had to lean in to hear her. “Frigg values foresight and wisdom, young jarl. Remember that, and keep thoughts of her close to your heart and deeds. Be devoted to your young wife-to-be and Frigg will bless you. 

"If you do not, you can blame no one else for your curse. You will forget me in time, but always feel the pull of _her,_ the knowledge that you were meant for something more and failed. A thousand lovers will feel empty and withered. And then after a thousand summers, she will spurn you, if your heart still runs with Freya.” 

Eric listened to the nonsense and nodded slowly, the shadows swimming thickly around him.

* * *

Sometimes Sookie’s dreams were of familiar places, with the addition of Eric, suddenly too close, whispering promises. Occasionally Eric’s memories spilled over into her dreams, making her wonder just how much the dreams of him were actually only her _own_ experiences, wondering how much they actually shared. She saw places he’d been. Sometimes she recognized them—a hotel room in the Carmilla, the stage of his tacky bar. Sometimes she had to guess they were his — generic silk sheets; a tropical shore; luxurious, unfamiliar homes. 

She couldn’t predict why or how she ended up in different dreamscapes. Usually they had some tie to what was going on. Now, she could tell that the mountains that rose above pine trees and ferns and the unfamiliar landscape had a definite Eric-origin. It was colder than any place she’d ever known, with air that cut into her lungs with its painful purity. 

Her feet were still bare and her sundress was meant for sweltering Louisiana days, not a dream like this. She shivered. The sunshine felt distant. Cool. She looked down, carefully picking her way through the ferns. She stepped over a line of mushrooms. At least the moss underfoot was dry and soft. 

Usually the dreams had something to do with what had been happening around her. But this… now….

She hadn’t had a dream like this in so long. She drew her arms carefully around her chest, trying to stay warm. “Eric?” she called. It had to be one of his dreams. It had to be. 

She looked around, trying to catch sight of a path or clue. A game trail of some sort, or a waterway, seemed to wind down from the mountain heights. She carefully picked her way towards it. In the gaps in the trees she could see it extend upwards, towards the crest of the mountain, cutting between the bare, jagged rocks far above. 

There was a clatter of stones from somewhere above her on the trail. She froze, her heart rate speeding up as she imagined the large predators that could be in this cold, ancient forest. “Eric?” she whispered this time, hoping that vampire hearing was better than wolves and bears and cougars and whatever else was out there. 

Nothing. 

She reached out, touching the rough bark of one of the trees. Footsteps. She braced herself, ready to run. She glanced around, trying to find something she could use as a weapon, a fallen branch, a rock, anything would be do. 

“Heil?” 

The voice was familiar, even if the greeting wasn’t. She went limp with relief.

“Eric!”

A familiar figure scrambled down the path. She covered her smile when she saw his long hair; she hadn’t seen him looking like this in years. He was wearing a long fur cloak over a red tunic and high boots. It was… certainly something. This was definitely not an outfit that Eric had been wearing that night, not unless vampires had a different version of Halloween. 

He smiled when she said his name, but when he spoke — she couldn’t understand him. 

That had never happened before. 

At first, she brushed it off as one of his mind-games. 

“I was scared you wouldn’t be here,” she admitted. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, and then I woke in the dream alone—”

She held her breath as he stepped closer. A familiar rush of fear rose in answer to his presence. Even dressed like this, in costume, he radiated danger. And despite it all, there was still that thread of desire that was woven into the fear. His intense look was enough to bring that home. It stopped her words.

She’d fought against that desire for a long time, in the waking world. She didn’t want to want Eric. 

She was tired of fighting. 

He touched her lips, grazing them with his thumb. The loneliness of the last few months had ate away at her. Boldly, she teased the pad of his thumb with the tip of her tongue. 

Even in a dream, the contact was nearly overwhelming.

His expression was caught somewhere between curiosity and the unselfaware slackness of pure lust. He actually caught his breath as she nipped playfully at the tip of his thumb. Sookie was delighted at the power that it gave her. 

Sookie lifted her hands, touching Eric’s chest, running her fingers through the unusual fur. She traced the engraved clasp holding the fur together. His hands followed hers, opening the catch. He swung it off. He looked at her intensely, walking her backwards. She tested each unseen step back. The moss was soft under her bare feet. Reaching some decision, he laid out the cloak on the ground, covering the moss and the mountain grasses with their small flowers. He knelt by it, and offered her his hand. 

Sookie reached for him, letting herself be guided down. He twisted to follow her, his hand cradled the back of her head, protecting it as he lowered her gently, and keeping her close when he finally kissed her. 

There was a tentativeness to it that made Sookie impatient. She found herself urging him on, slipping her tongue between his lips. He laughed slightly against her as he pulled away, again staring deeply into her eyes. 

When he spoke again, she could tell he asked a question, but that was it. 

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why aren’t you speaking English?”

He tilted his head at her for a moment, then kissed her again. This time, the kiss had the strength and power that she remembered, Eric at once both demanding and playful and _wanting_ her so clearly that it almost made her light headed. 

It had been too long. She’d thought the dreams were over. It had been so long since she’d had one. And now, to have one so immersive…

It had been months since she’d touched someone else. Anyone else. Her brief attempts at dating had been stilted, plagued by the same problems her gift had always brought. 

The cape-turned-blanket was soft beneath her, tickling her bare legs. Eric reverently pulled up the hem of her dress, a sort of adoration and openness on his face. His thumbs stroked against her bare skin as he gathered the material at her waist. She wanted his hands on her. Sookie helped him along, pulling the dress over her head and setting it aside. She gasped at the sudden cold, feeling her nipples gather and pebble in the cool air. 

She arched her back, pulled his hand to her breast when he drank in the sight of her for too long. If he could be demanding, so could she. If he wasn’t going to speak — well, they didn’t need words for this. She hitched herself a little closer to him as his thumb teased lightly over her nipple, his hand actually warm compared to the thin mountain air. It made her smile. 

He looked so good above her, his hair catching the sunlight in a golden halo. She didn’t want to close her eyes. 

“I want you,” she whispered, free in this dream, in the impossible daylight. 

He said something in reply, she couldn’t understand, his mind buzzing in the same language. Instead of a void, she could feel the emotions running underneath the words, sort of, appreciation and desire and curiosity.

“I’ve missed you.” It was easy to speak when he couldn’t twist and manipulate her words and emotions. 

Even in a dream her own forwardness embarrassed her, heating her ears and pulling a hot blush into her cheeks. She traced her fingers along the hard length in his pants, and he quickly got the idea. She didn’t want to wake up before the good part. She hated when that happened. “Hurry,” she whispered. 

She slipped her hand down his back, cupping his rear to pull him closer. It made him smile, he said something short, half laughing as he was briefly hidden in his shirt, before he pulled it off to look at her again. She smiled at the incredulous look she got. 

Sookie tucked her hands into the back of his leggings to make him grin like that again.

She’d forgotten how happy Eric’s smile had made her. 

When she drew her hands around his sculpted waist to the front of his pants, his smile faded. The quiet look of _want_ was just as powerful. 

She tugged at the front of his leggings. He obligingly slipped them down. She traced the back of her fingers along his length. She’d once been intimately familiar. Other relationships had blurred the details in her memory, but she was happy to relearn. 

She stroked him. He was already so hard. He flexed his hips, pushing forward into her fingers. He tilted his head back, directed words she couldn’t understand up to the afternoon sky. 

It wasn’t easy to forget about Eric’s size, but having him so close to her really drove the difference home as he lowered his body closer to her, shifting his cock out of her reach, pressing it into her thigh, a reminder of how ready he was, how much he wanted her. His fingers teased at the only fabric still between them, playing with the elastic against her inner thighs, then spreading her through the material. Sookie bit her lip and watched him tease her, as he shifted, stretching out alongside her. Finally, he slipped his hand into her underwear, pulling the fabric down her legs. She helped. Lifting her hips shifted her leg against Eric and they both groaned, and then his hand was between her legs and she wasn’t thinking about anything else. 

She turned towards him, digging her fingers into his back and holding him close as she rubbed herself against his palm. Even that contact was nearly enough to send her over the edge. Her heart was racing. She hooked one leg over Eric’s, trying to open her legs a little to give him the room to work. His own leg slipped between hers, the feel of the feathery hair on his leg tickling her thigh.

He pushed his fingers inside her, and she whimpered. He wasn’t rough, but it had been so long. Eric whispered soothing nonsense, his lips at her forehead, as she adjusted to the feeling. He tentatively moved his arm, returning to stroke her clit. She knew he could get her off like this but she wanted more. She leaned up to kiss him, struggling to make the height difference work. “Eric,” she whispered, the one word she knew he knew. 

She pulled his hand away and reached for his cock again, guiding it to where she wanted it. 

“Please,” she asked. 

He shifted, easily holding himself over her as he rolled her to her back. She couldn’t stop herself from biting her lip again as he slowly pushed in. She gave way to him slowly, and he breathed audibly as he slowly thrust in. The tightness slowly gave way, blooming into slick, wet heat. It was overwhelming to have him inside her again after so long.

“Slowly,” she asked, matching his intense eye contact with an incredible feat of will. She rocked her hips gently against him giving him the idea, and he pulled her close, gently matching her thrust for thrust, letting her guide the pace. 

The world slowly narrowed to the blue sky behind him. She let her eyes fall shut, wanting to just feel, wanting to forget about everything else. He gently touched her cheek, smiling when she opened her eyes. He kissed her again, deeply, and she wrapped her arms around his back, pulling him close, trying to block out everything else in the world except for feeling like this. 

She could feel her pleasure slowly build, and slipped a hand between them to urge herself closer to that release. She could feel every touch twice - once directly, and again as Eric reacted to her, little noises or thrusting a little harder as she clenched around him. It was a heady, hazy power. She wanted to feel good again. She wanted him to feel good. 

She wrapped her legs around Eric, holding him tight as she pressed against him, feeling the pressure build towards the promise of release. Her inner thighs trembled and she tightened her fingers, digging into his back as she broke the kiss and hid her gasps in the junction of his neck and shoulder. 

The pressure broke and she shook with the orgasm, pulsing waves tightening around him. Her body pulled Eric with her. She was hyperaware of her skin against his, and she let herself relax, feeling dreamy and content. She lazily traced patterns on his skin as he thrust a bit deeper, setting his own pace and loosing himself in his own pleasure a moment or two later. 

He rolled off her, still panting, and playfully pulled her so that she was half-draped across his chest. 

Pleasantly exhausted, Sookie settled in where he placed her, content not to have to move. She felt deliciously achy. She shifted her cheek against Eric’s chest, listening to his heartbeat slow. 

She idly traced the edges of his muscles, and he flexed and said something that was probably teasing her. She smiled, grateful that she didn’t understand. His words couldn’t ruin this. He lifted a hand to wipe at the sweat on his forehead.

Sookie shifted uneasily. 

Heartbeat. Sweat. She sat up, feeling the wet spill of him between her thighs. These details didn’t belong in a dream. 

“Eric…” she began. 

He made an exhausted sound and gently pulled her back down. She tucked herself against his body, listening to him breathe, and wondering what was different in this dream. 

Her heart started quickening its pace again.

* * *

The woman had grown more withdrawn as he carried her down the trail to his village. She was practically frozen when he tugged her into his longhouse, either with regret or actually chilled, in her impractical, revealing clothing. The night had settled in, and a fire was crackling in the center of the room, with a pot boiling away with the comforting smell of grains and meat and apples and thyme. 

The sun was just setting, and his children were still awake. He hid his wry annoyance. It would have been easier to return home later in the night and avoid all this. The woman tucked herself into his side, as if startled by the children’s noisy approach. 

“Eric,” he touched his chest, speaking slowly and distinctly, hoping that the dark-eyed stranger would understand. 

He dropped a hand on his eldest son’s head. “Njal.” He’d been named in hopes that he’d gain Eric’s height. The little girl was “Tove”. The sleepy toddler with his mother’s curls was “Kare.”

The woman followed each motion, looked steadily at him. 

She wasn’t an idiot. She could tell what he was doing. She touched her own chest. “Sookie,” she said.

“Su-ki,” he repeated the unfamiliar syllables. He couldn’t place her origins. It was a little unnerving. He considered himself well-traveled. 

“This is Suki,” he told his children. “She will be staying with us.”

“Is she a thrall?” Njal’s eyes were narrowed, suspicious of strangers, of his place in their house. Eric soothed him with a hand on his back, reassuring, as he tried to decide the best way to answer. 

Eric looked over at Suki. He didn’t want to limit her like that. If the seer had…

He frowned, his mind gone cloudy. He couldn’t remember exactly what the seer had said. 

No matter. 

“For now she’s with us as a friend,” he said. 

Njal crossed his arms, skeptical. Eric hid his smile. His son was growing up if he was already that perceptive.

He pulled Suki towards the fire, where her and her impractical clothing would be warm as the evening meal cooked under the watchful eye of a thrall.

* * *

Sookie watched Eric hold soothe the youngest child. _His_ youngest child, though it was strange to think of Eric as a father. Of her three past boyfriends, Bill had always seemed so much more the family man, but here, it looked effortless on Eric. She’d discussed Eric’s mortal life with him, briefly. She knew what he had said, back then. It hadn’t quite sank it at the time. Maybe a thousand years elapsing did that. 

He paced the room, swaying in a manner that was familiar to parents everywhere. 

Sookie had to hold back a sudden urge to cry for what he’d lost so long ago. After he had been turned, he had said he hadn’t been able to see his family again. It had to hurt. 

But he didn’t look surprised to be back here, so it didn’t seem like he’d taken her into his memories on purpose. 

She was an intruder here, in this dream. She leaned gingerly against an elaborately carved screen, watching him settle the curly-haired toddler into a thick blanket. The kids had all been tucked in; the benches along the walls turned to beds with thick sheepskins and blankets, close to the fire as it burned low. 

He sang something unfamiliar, sitting against the bed, watching his child sleep. 

He ruffled the child’s hair and pulled a thick fleece up a little tighter around the boy’s neck. 

Instead of candles, little dishes of oil with short wicks lit the corners of the rooms. He carefully brought one of the lights with him, the embers of the fire not casting much light at all anymore. He offered her his arm, and Sookie took it, feeling entirely out of place. This Eric wasn’t Eric. 

And he wasn’t the Eric that she’d gotten to know when he lost his memories. 

He guided her to the end of the structure, opening a door. He moved inside, setting the flame into a little nook. The room was little more than a bed. Since it had been closed off from the rest of the house it was cooler, and he let her hesitate, not pressuring her, although the offer was obvious.

She considered the threshold. She could refuse, and possibly claim another of the benches in the main area, staying out with the children until she woke from this dream. He might force her to stay regardless, but the patient way he was watching her spoke of a different outlook. 

She made her choice.

She followed Eric into what must be his bedroom.

The floor was high, and when Sookie stepped up into the space she realized the entire raised floor was a mattress. Eric moved around her, the small space reminding her of sharing a tent in the backyard with Tara as a kid, playing at camping. He moved around her with the same sort of feeling of being pressed too close as he closed the door behind them. It made a sort of nook, a nest. 

She shivered. 

He stripped off his clothes, leaving them on a shelf. She copied him, folding her borrowed clothing. When in Rome — or, well, in this case, when in a Viking longhouse. 

He lifted up a corner of the blankets, something playful in his expression as he urged her in. 

The sheets were as soft as anything, faintly smelling of smoke, and something like meadows and pines, beyond the hints that must just be Eric himself. 

This was the strangest dream she’d ever been in. Eric wrapped around her, warm in a startling contrast. She listened for a moment to the beat of his heart. 

His memories of another time. 

He shifted against her back, apparently interested in more than sleeping.

“There are children out there,” Sookie whispered, faintly scandalized. 

She didn’t understand his reply, but it was quiet, soothing. It pitched into a question she wasn’t sure she understood. 

Eric slipped one of his legs between hers. The weight of him against her was starting to feel familiar again. She tucked her toes around his leg, holding Eric close. His hand rested lightly on her breast. Sookie froze, listening for movement outside. She didn’t hear anything, though. 

She started to relax into his touch. He held her close, thrusting lazily against the curve of her ass. He smoothed her hair away from her neck. 

“You can bite, if you want…?” she said, her voice as low as a whisper. “Is that a thing in this dream?” She wanted to believe she had just offered for Eric, to make sure this was good for him, too. She didn’t want to admit that she’d missed that bright edge of pain and the pleasure that followed. She wasn’t like that.

He nuzzled against the base of her neck, but if he understood he didn’t acknowledge it. He kissed under her ear and she shivered against him. 

She could feel herself responding to his arousal, growing wet as his hands started teasing her breasts with greater intent. He did bite her, lightly, and with dull human teeth. Sookie sucked in a quick breath and pressed her face away, trying to hide how much she wanted this. 

She writhed against Eric. When she started pressing her ass back into him, he rose up on his forearm and leaned over her, contorting slightly so that he could kiss her shoulder as he pushed inside. 

Sookie pressed her face into the blankets, muffling the involuntary sounds that escaped her throat. 

He moved, slow and languid, as if they had all the time in the world. Eric moving behind her always felt more primal, the softness brought a different edge to it though, more lazy than animalistic. She shuddered and tangled her fingers into the sheets, trying to stay as quiet as she could. 

He pulled her hips up and back; not vampire strong, but still effortlessly in control. The angle shifted, and it drove her closer with every stroke. Eric dropped his hand lower until he reached where they were joined and his fingertips stroked with gentle intent, sparking white-hot pleasure that stitched her naval to her spine. Her legs began to shake as the pressure built. 

She came, muffling her moans in her forearms. He whispered something into her ear, and she shivered, not entirely sure she was up for knowing if it was something dirty or sweet, the sense of pride and arousal underneath the strange language speaking enough that it could be either.

He gave her a few moments to catch her breath before Eric shifted behind her. He lightly kept one hand on her upper back, keeping her pinned as he chased his own release, coming a few moments later, just as quietly as Sookie had. She hid her face in her arms and tried not to think about how much she was enjoying this dream. 

He pulled her close as he curled around her again. As the sweat cooled on their skin, he found the blankets and wrapped them up again, rising briefly to blow out the little oil-wick flame.

* * *

Sookie stretched as she woke. She was surprised to hit her hand on a wall that shouldn’t be anywhere near the side of her bed. Her hip sunk into a soft mattress as she shifted, and the blankets were a heavy, comforting weight over her - and the air that hit her face was downright cold. 

It wasn’t her bed. She shoved herself up. A high window she hadn’t noticed let in faint light. It was the little nook in the back of the viking house. She found the dress she’d been given yesterday night, wishing she had something else. The red wool was thick and soft, a pattern woven into the edges of the sleeves and collar. She examined the wall, finding the door, and cautiously opened it. 

She should have woken in her own bed, not here. She’d never fallen asleep and woken again within a dream before.

Fear started to creep in. Too much was different between this and other dreams. This must be something else.

She didn’t have to go far to find him. Eric was cradling his toddler in his arms in the main hall, still looking surprisingly comfortable.

Kare gave her the suspicious, big-eyed look that young children give strangers. 

Sookie froze in the doorway. 

Eric looked up at her and for a moment, her heart just wanted. It was everything that wouldn’t be possible for him — for them — when she woke up for real. A family. Children. That had been on her mind too often, lately. Maybe his as well, if this dream was any indication.

“I… I woke up here…” she said softly, not understanding. 

He shifted the child to his hip, an easy gesture that Sookie would have found familiar if it was done by anyone else. Her Eric was sex, blood, and power; not childcare. Not a father. 

He asked something she didn’t understand, and she wanted to cry in frustration. 

He seemed to sense her dismay. 

Eric pressed a kiss into the toddler’s head but reached a hand out for Sookie. She took it hesitantly. The child gave a tentative cry and turned his face away, and Eric said something softly, his words lilting in his unfamiliar language.

He pulled Sookie closer, and kissed the back of her hand. It felt like a promise. And Sookie was at a complete loss for how to take it.

* * *

Eric’s sisters were not as pleased with Sookie’s appearance as Eric had been. 

“She’s elf-touched,” Randi said, watching how Sookie moved through the collection of houses like a sleepwalker, staring at things like she’d never seen anything before. She was nursing her youngest child. “Not right in the head. Maybe she wandered away from one of the other villages.” 

"Maybe they tried to get her out before winter; one less mouth to feed,” Liv said cynically, as she carried out the cooking pot, having set aside the cooked bags of grain for breakfast. “Hot water! Mind!” she called to the little folk, before she cast the remnants of the water out on the grass. 

“And how often do the gods wander in to test their followers for fools? You’ve heard the stories. And the clothing she was in when you found her - how small the hands must be do such needlework. No, I still say she’s not entirely human. She’ll disappear as quickly as she came,” Randi continued, with all the certainty of the superstitious. 

Eric was brooding, sitting beside Randi as he considered the options in front of him.

Done with the cooking, Eric’s other sister came to sit by them. “She doesn’t know how to spin.” Liv’s frown was etched deep. “She looked at the spindles like she thought they were magic.”

Eric gave a shrug. “I have others to make my sails.” It was of little consequence to him. “Why should she need to?”

His older sister lifted another finger. “She does not seem to take to childcare.”

“Give the children time to get used to her.”

“Does she cook? Does she know the first thing about farming? Animal husbandry?” His elder sister’s eyes flashed. “Or is she just something new in your bed?

The seer’s words were wrapped in fog. Still, there had been something about wisdom. Patience, maybe. Characteristics that had never been his strength. He gritted his teeth and didn’t give into his anger. 

“If you want her as a bedwarmer, then take her as a thrall, younger brother. I’ve heard Inga is a proud woman, but she may allow it if you are courteous about it.” His elder sister’s lips twisted to the side in dismay. “The reputation you earned in the last raids may do you some good. Don’t throw it all away.”

Eric turned a shoulder dismissively. He was the jarl’s son. A thread of anger started coiling. “I can do what I want.”

Liv shook her head. 

Randi narrowed her eyes. “Would you claim her as your wife? Would you be devoted to her?”

Eric avoided answering the question. It struck a chord, something in his memory… He didn’t quite remember how the seer had phrased it. His memories were so foggy. She had said they were many women in his future. And… he frowned. 

“Would you really give up a good dowry for sex?” 

That _would_ be the issue for his family. 

“I don’t need to. I can make both work,” Eric said finally, smugly confident. “She is obviously not our people. No more than the thralls. I can make Inga see that. She will accept another set of hands around our hearth.”

“And someone else’s children?” Randi raised an eyebrow. “Brother, you are truly a fool.” 

“The gods will it,” Eric snapped.

“Perhaps. But some gods like to play games,” Liv cautioned. 

Eric stood. “Enough.” He looked around. “Where did she wander off to?” he muttered, his mood soured. 

“Ah, good, it’ll be like having two toddlers to keep an eye on. What fun for Inga,” Randi said sarcastically. 

Eric frowned, heading away from his sisters and started looking in earnest.

* * *

Sookie woke up on the front lawn, where she’d dozed off in the early afternoon sunshine. The threads of whatever dream she’d had slipped away from her, though she had a vague impression of Eric and…

She jerked completely awake. How long had she been asleep? She touched her arm, worried about burning. With a sigh of relief, she realized that her skin wasn’t too rosy, her tentative touches didn’t leave white marks. She ran a hand through her hair. She hadn’t realized she was so tired. She had just intended to enjoy the sunshine for a little, but now the sun was setting, and she’d have to hurry if she was going to make her shift at Bellefleur’s on time. 

She got up and swept at the grass imprints on the back of her legs.

She didn’t notice that she stepped through a circle of toadstools on her way back to her front porch.

* * *

Eric was absolutely furious when he found himself alone, the fine red wool dress abandoned at the edge of a meadow behind his home. There was no trace of the woman, no sign that Suki had ever been there, no trace of her strange clothing. 

He brought the seer new sacrifices.

The seer’s hut looked inconspicuous, built into the side of the cliff. He tethered the goats where they could graze in the natural pasture, far enough away that their appetites wouldn’t be a nuisance to anything in the house. 

He headed inside, but the little room was empty. 

He had to wait for the seer to return. He paced impatiently. 

“Where is she?” he demanded when she approached the house. “Where did she go?”

She reached a hand up to the side of his face. “You ask a lot when you haven’t fulfilled the rest of the bargain.”

Eric felt the ground lurch beneath his feet. 

“Why are you here?” The seer looked at him, nearly at his height. The cataracts that crowded her eyes made them seem milky in the daytime. He frowned, remembering a vivid blue from… 

No, he had just gotten there. He offered a small smile to cover his unease. “I brought… goats…”

“Yes.” She glanced over at them, dismissively. “I see that.” 

“I wanted to ask…” He wrinkled his forehead. “I wanted to ask for a blessing. For my marriage. To Inga.”

“Ah. Inga? Daughter of Rune?” The seer smiled. “Go, meet her. The gods may yet bless your union.” The seer glanced over at the goats again.

Eric touched his forehead again, not sure why he felt like something was missing. 

“Right,” he said. 

The seer leaned against her doorway, watching him warily as he turned to head back. “Beware the night, young jarl.”

Eric glanced over his shoulder contemptuously. 

“I have nothing to fear from the night.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I took some artistic liberties with the Freya/Frigg dichotomy. Some scholars believe they were the same individual, but having two aspects suited my purposes here.


End file.
